Bull (ship, 1936)
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The Stier was a German cargo ship that was captured during World War II under the designation Schiff 23 for use in the Navy . It was originally built as a Cairo for the German Atlas Levante Line . Under the designation Handelsstörkreuzer 6 (HSK 6) the ship was used as an auxiliary cruiser . Frigate captain Horst Gerlach chose the name Taurus based on the zodiac sign of his wife Hildegard. At the British Royal Navy was bull as a Raider J known.
The ship had to be self -sunk on September 27, 1942 due to severe damage after a battle with the armed American Liberty freighter Stephen Hopkins . ( Location )
history
In 1935, with the unbundling of the German shipping companies with simultaneous almost central state control, an Atlas Levante Line (ALL) was again established in Bremen. The first new building order went to Kieler Germania shipyard , where the motor ship Cairo was built under construction number 563. It was launched on October 7, 1936 and took its first test drive on December 15. Even before the completion of the type ship, the order for two replicas went to the Emden Nordseewerke , which were launched in 1937 as Ankara and in 1939 as Levante . The new Cairo was measured with 4778 GRT, had a load capacity of 7245 dwt and space for 12 passengers. The lead ship of the new Levante freighter was 134 m long, 17.3 m wide and was powered by a 7-cylinder, two-stroke MAN diesel engine with 3750 hp produced at the shipyard, which enabled a service speed of 14 knots (kn). The sister ships and newbuildings of the DDG Argo , with which the ALL was very closely connected, received similar engines .
Use as a protection ship
On November 25, 1939, the Cairo was taken over by the Navy. She was armed with two 15 cm guns and from then on served as Ship 23, initially as an icebreaker , then as a protection ship and trading sturgeon cruiser in the Baltic Sea . Corvette captain Pahl was in command until it passed to Horst Gerlach in May 1940 .
For the Seelöwe company , the planned invasion of England, the ship was converted into a mine ship and stationed in Cherbourg and later in Saint-Nazaire .
On April 21, 1941, ship 23 was taken out of service for conversion to an auxiliary cruiser. The conversion began at the Wilton-Fijenoord shipyard in Schiedam and was completed at the Oderwerke in Stettin .
Patrol of the bull
On November 11, 1941, Frigate Captain Gerlach put the commercial sturgeon cruiser 6 into service and named it Stier . Initially, the ship sailed under the cover identity of its sister ship Ankara . On May 9, 1942, the ship disguised as a barrier breaker 171 left Kiel and went to Rotterdam in escort.
Channel breakthrough
On May 12th, the Stier left Rotterdam accompanied by 16 clearing boats of the 2nd and 8th clearing boat flotilla and the torpedo boats Iltis , condor , falcon and sea eagle of the 5th torpedo boat flotilla. On the night of May 13 at 2 a.m., the Dover coastal batteries opened fire on the convoy, but the convoy was out of range of the guns. At around 3:30 a.m., an attack by British motor torpedo boats followed , in the course of which the German torpedo boats Iltis and Seeadler and the British MTB 220 sank. The fighting turned out to be chaotic, with the bull's front guns shooting in fog and darkness at a suspicious shadow, which however turned out to be the foredeck of the sinking sea eagles , on which sailors were still trying to save themselves. 199 of 287 crew members perished when the polecat and sea eagle sank.
The bull remained undamaged in the fighting and reached Royan at the Gironde estuary, from where it left for the North Atlantic on May 19.
On June 1, 1942, Frigate Captain Gerlach was promoted to sea captain.
Sunk ships
Gemstone
- June 4, 1942, 4,986 GRT, British steamer, 200 miles east of the Saints Peter and Saint Pauls Rocks . ( Location )
Captain E. J. Griffith gave up after a brief attempt to escape, and the entire crew could be brought on board the bull unharmed . The Gemstone carrying iron ore was sunk with a torpedo.
Stanvac Calcutta
- June 6, 1942, 10,170 GRT, in ballast tanker under the Panamanian flag ( Lage )
The tanker returned fire from a 4-inch gun and scored two hits. A grenade exploded in a crew quarters and wounded two men. After massive fire and a torpedo hit, the tanker slowly listed and sank. 14 crew members, including the captain Gustav O. Karlsson, died on the Stanvac Calcutta , and another died on board the bull .
- On June 10th meeting with the tanker Charlotte Schliemann . 68 prisoners were taken off board.
- On July 27th another meeting with Charlotte Schliemann , handover of the remaining prisoners (captains and wounded).
- On July 29th, meeting with the auxiliary cruiser Michel . Gerlach and Hellmuth von Ruckteschell decided to act together.
Dalhousie
- August 9, 1942, 7,072 GRT, British motor ship ( Lage )
The Dalhousie initially returned fire with her 12.7 cm gun without getting hit. After his ship was set on fire, Captain F. Davis finally gave up after about half an hour. The bull took 37 prisoners. So that the burning ship did not attract further attention, it was sunk with a torpedo. When the merchant ship began to capsize, the Michel appeared on the scene. Ruckteschell, who rejected Gerlach's tactics, decided to continue the hunt alone. As a result, Gerlach tried to use the two Arado Ar 231 aircraft to identify potential targets. The two test models, which were intended for submarines, proved to be completely unsuitable under the operating conditions in the Atlantic.
- On August 27, another meeting with Charlotte Schliemann north of Gough Island to collect fuel.
- Another meeting with Michel on September 24th
- On September 26th, the bull met with the supply / blockade breaker Tannenfels , a sister ship of the Atlantis , and the penguin , who had been an auxiliary cruiser in 1940/41.
The following day, both ships were still lying together at sea when a third ship suddenly appeared at the rendezvous point when visibility was poor.
Stephen Hopkins
- September 27, 1942, 8,500 GRT, American steamer ( Lage )
It was the armed Liberty freighter Stephen Hopkins under the command of Captain Paul Buck. At 8:54 a.m. the auxiliary cruiser fired the first volley, but the steamer successfully returned fire from several guns. In the end, clearly inferior in terms of firepower, the enemy sank after an hour-long firefight. Because of the heavy seas, a search for survivors on the Tannenfels was unsuccessful, but 31 days later 15 of 19 survivors reached the coast of Brazil in a lifeboat.
The rest of the Stephen Hopkins' 57 crew paid their brave resistance with their lives.
End of the raid
The encounter with the Stephen Hopkins also sealed the fate of the Taurus . The first hits had damaged the main engine and started several fires; as the on-board power supply failed, ammunition lifts and fire pumps also stopped working. The supplier Tannenfels , who was nearby, was also unable to provide any support in fighting the fire because of the high seas. The bull had to be abandoned, the crew and prisoners climbed onto the Tannenfels and the ship was sunk with two explosive charges.
Commandant Gerlach had three deaths, five seriously injured and 28 slightly injured. The now completely overcrowded Tannenfels , which left Yokohama for Germany on August 8, 1942 with a cargo of essential raw materials such as rubber , tungsten , titanium , copper , opium and quinine as well as cooking oil and fats, reached the port safely on November 2, 1942 by Royan .
Officers on board
- Horst Gerlach (commander), became the commander of the last auxiliary cruiser Hansa that was not used
- Ludolf Petersen (First Officer)
- Heinz Schomburg (radio officer) - later commander of U 145 and U 561
literature
- Jochen Brennecke: The German auxiliary cruisers in World War II. Koehler, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0828-5 .
- Zvonimir Freivogel: German auxiliary cruiser of the Second World War. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-613-02288-5 .
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 3 : U-boats, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers and barrier breakers. . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 , pp. 164 f .
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford,
- August K. Muggenthaler: Those were the German auxiliary cruisers 1939–1945. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-87943-261-9 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
Web links
- German naval archive
- The bull on bismarck-class.dk (Engl.)
- us website about the sinking of the Stanvac Calcutta
Individual evidence
- ^ Rohwer, p. 245
- ↑ Information on Gemstone , 1938 James Laing, Sunderland
- ↑ Information on Stanvac Calcutta , 1941 Quincy NY
- ↑ Information and picture of Charlotte Schliemann , 1928 Naskov as Karl Knudsen from the stack, 7747 BRT, 3500 HP, 11 kn, bought in 1939 by Schliemann & Menzell (Hamburg) in Norway, when war broke out in Spain, used as a supplier until February 1944
- ↑ Information on Dalhousie , 1940 Burntisland
- ↑ CV and pictures of the Tannenfels of the DDG Hansa
- ↑ Information on Stephen Hopkins , 1942 Kaiser´s Shipbuilding
- ^ Rohwer, p. 287
Map with all coordinates: